As Publish What You Fund and others in the aid transparency community turn their energies toward improving data use, Ruth Levine and Joseph Asunka of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation present six practical ideas that could speed up progress. These ideas could go a long way to increase the use of data by government officials, and the organisations and citizens working to hold their government officials accountable for results.

Next week is Private Finance for Sustainable Development Week – an annual OECD event that brings together the public and private sector to discuss new approaches in using private finance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Naturally the role of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) will be included in these discussions by virtue of the financial muscle they bring to the table. And as part of our ongoing work on DFI Transparency we’ll be there.
In this blog we question the value of increasing the focus on impact measurement if development objectives, results and lessons learned are not transparent.

It’s been a busy year at Publish What You Fund. As is traditional at this time of year, we’ve been reflecting on what we’ve achieved and what we need to do next. Here’s our quick roundup of what the team has been up to – from the influential Aid Transparency Index, and on the ground research into aid flows in Liberia and Cambodia, to developing new tools to increase access to aid and development data.

The new US Development Finance Corporation provides a rare opportunity to set up an agency from the beginning. We can learn from other development finance institutions (DFIs) as to what worked and what did not. This is an opportunity to reach higher, to innovate more, and to truly set a gold standard for transparency.